Japan's Venus probe fires thrusters on 2nd attempt to enter planet's orbit

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) attempted for a second time on Monday to put a probe into orbit around Venus to monitor the planet's atmosphere following a failed first attempt five years ago.

According to JAXA, the probe, named Akatsuki, which was first launched in May 2010 and was supposed to enter Venus' orbit in December that year but failed due to an engine misfiring, following a reprogramming, successfully fired its altitude-controlling thrusters for 20 minutes to redirect it into the orbit of Venus.

The probe began firing its thrusters at around 8:50 a.m. local time to slow its speed and insert it into orbit, and the space agency subsequently confirmed that the 20-minute burn will hopefully push the craft into a 300,000-kilometer elliptical orbit of Venus where it will measure meteorological phenomena from the planet, which is the second closest to the Sun and orbits the earth every 224.7 days.

Officials at JAXA's control center in Sagamihara, west of Tokyo, confirmed that communications with the probe were all as normal following the thrusters being burned and that its six types of observation equipment were functioning properly.

The space agency, officials said, is hoping that its probe will be able to collect a plethora of data, including 3D images pertaining to the dense cloud coverage around Venus and wind speeds of some 100 meters per second high above the planet that may be responsible for the planet rotating slower than the winds, in a phenomenon known as super-rotation.

But JAXA said the volume of data may be impaired as the probe has been circling the planet much faster than it would have done had it entered the orbit of Venus as it was supposed to in 2010.

The probe was only designed to last for four years initially, the space agency said, but has been operating for more than five years and has had its equipment exposed to the Sun for a longer period than it was designed for.

But project manager Masato Nakamura was quoted as saying that those working on the mission had worked exceedingly hard on the project and were confident on fulfilling the mission, though describing it as an "extremely difficult task."

So far the space agency has found no degradation to the probe's equipment, he added.

Officials at JAXA said they will confirm Wednesday whether the probe has successfully been traveling in the targeted orbit around Venus. Enditem